Notes and Editorial Reviews

To celebrate the 200th birthday of this master pianist and composer, this 6-CD set contains a diverse collection of the 100 best-loved masterpieces of Franz Liszt. The ?rst CD begins with complete performances of Liszt’s two piano concertos, both ?rmly established as staples of the concerto repertoire. They are followed by extracts from a number of Liszt’s other works for piano and orchestra including Fantasy on Hungarian Folk Themes and Malédiction. The next three CDs cover Liszt’s huge output of works for solo piano, from miniatures like ‘La campanella’ (‘The little bell’) using a melody by Paganini and ‘Un sospiro’ (‘A sigh’), to the massive Sonata in B minor that was used so poignantly by Sir Frederic Ashton in his memorableRead more ballet Marguerite and Armand created for Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev. CD 5 is a collection of Liszt’s songs, including the beautiful love song ‘O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!’, otherwise known as Liebestraume No. 3. Liszt invented the term ‘Symphonic Poem’, which he applied to a number of orchestral works that did not obey traditional musical forms and were based generally on a literary or pictorial idea. CD 6 includes extracts from several of these, such as Prometheus, Festklänge and Les Préludes. Also represented here are other orchestral works such as Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and A Faust Symphony as well as several of Liszt’s famous Hungarian Rhapsodies, originally written for solo piano but performed here in spectacular orchestral versions that have achieved enormous popularity.